


Twelve Hours

by beautifullyheeled



Series: Verehren [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Assaulting Police, Drinking to Cope, Gen, Guilt, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Shock, Shock of Loss, reaching out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-27
Updated: 2014-02-27
Packaged: 2018-01-13 22:59:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1243720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beautifullyheeled/pseuds/beautifullyheeled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>First Twelve Hours after Sherlock's fall</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twelve Hours

He’d fallen to the floor, figuratively of course, when he heard the news. Sherlock Holmes had committed suicide. It was only twenty-eight minutes. They followed Lestrade to the scene. Cordoned it off. He’d begun the arduous task of taking samples and marking spatter. Holmes on his gloves. On the pavement. A few infinitesimal drops on the bricking of Saint Bart’s foundation. A fleck on the curb.

Holmes' samples back at his lab. How was he to deal with this? He’d been to see Molly. She was a wreck. That was at the ninety-two minute mark. He’d held her as she collapsed into him. They’d been chums at university. Then drawn together again through their specialisations. Through Sherlock and his brilliantly infuriating mind. And yet here he lay, the trauma too real, the eyes too vacant. He found himself in tears as well.

At the one-hundred-and-twenty-three mark, he slumped at his quiet desk and cried again.

Suicide. It was suicide. God bless the soul that had resided in the shell. He’d often quipped and tried to engage Holmes; he knew it infuriated the man, but in a familial way. Thus the ribbing at crime scenes, the reason why he got onto him about Sally, the night Sherlock had met John and he’d been there at the bust. He’d hoped Sherlock was still clean. Back then, Holmes had to prove himself.

By the end, Anderson hated him at times. To be able to see what he did. To be able to pluck the minutia from the aether. And it be right. Accurate almost. Practically perfect like some crime solving Mary Poppins.  But then he’d let his guard slip just enough. The frailty of his genius would show. Then it was as if it was endearing. Infuriating as a younger sibling, one who hadn’t quite learned the ropes to life yet.

Then the callus mask came back. Froze everyone, even John out sometimes. The damn deer-stalker. He’d thought how precious and ribbing it was. How Sherlock looked as if he understood it meant he was included in on the joke for once. Not outside anymore. Then that damn Brook character… none of it added up. He’d pull the court records later, but for now, it was time to close the proverbial book and go have a stiff whiskey and a few pints.

At two-hundred-and-twenty-one minutes, he was outside Baker, knocking as if he were an old friend one shot already in his system and two bottles of the best he could afford in his hand. John, of course he was a wreck. The doctor wasn’t allowed near any of it. Couldn’t grace Sherlock’s body with even a touch.

He told John he’d seen him. That Molly had him and that he was being given the best care. The orders for no autopsy had been brought down from his brother. The man didn’t want his brother’s body desecrated. John didn’t complain as he went into the kitchen and grabbed the tumblers. Who cared if it was only gone eleven in the morning? 

They shared a few quick drinks, then Davidson showed up to arrest John for punching the Superintendent. They rowed heavily in front of Watson; he tried to get the other officer to see reason. Said that what John had done was right. That there was no reason for saying the things the man had begun to say about Sherlock. They laughed mirthlessly together in the back of the car on the way to the station, Davidson bloodied by his own hand.

Lestrade came down and bailed them both after a few hours. He’d been busy himself. They had the momentous task of going through every single case now. To prove Sherlock Holmes was indeed, not a fake. He told John about pulling the files on Brook… Moriarty… how he’d look into it and how John was welcome even as Greg shook his head and went to his office with a quiet shut of his door leaving the two to their short discussion.

Four-hundred-and-six minutes. Six hours, forty-six minutes, twelve seconds since Sherlock Holmes had ceased to exist. He’d gotten a call and his samples were being picked up. Damn them. He kept one vial for testing labeling it with a small blue dot and his own identification code so it wouldn’t be taken. God, what didn’t they want them to find out? How had they gotten the injunction and freeze so quickly?

He watched them scrub his items for anything related. Thanking God he hadn’t really dove in yet. That most of his analysis was theory. He’d backed up the crime scene to a pin already. Old habit from when Sherlock would come in and grab things from files.

_‘Always keep a backup. Not everyone can have an eidetic memory… You’re not that clever with any sort of observation you know.’_

But he became able to spot things, just as John had. Gleaned small tactics of observation and scene recreation from watching the man. God when he was on fire he was glorious. He swore there were times Sherlock lit up the room, created magic as his words flowed in nearly perfect precise recitation as if it had been memorized. He understood Sally’s feelings, as an officer. She had to raise question, but it hadn’t needed to be handled to this end.

Not her choice. The Superintendent’s. That bloody arse had another thing coming in this lifetime when Lestrade and he could prove without a shadow, that Sherlock had been right. That he was a minor miracle. That he really was that clever.

At six-hundred-and-fifty-seven minutes, he was going through old files laughing grimly remembering the most recent ones. He’d start there. With this Brook/ Moriarty figure. He’d sent a text to Greg to join him, but nothing yet. Just him, and the cold papers. Echos. He texted John. No answer either. Time to review those files. Memorise. See what was not. Shaking his head, he closed them and pressed them into his shoulder bag, and headed towards Baker as it was sort of on the way home.

If he were feeling this, he could only imagine John’s grief.

_‘Love, vicious thing isn’t it? Why do you try to save your failed marriage then?’_

_‘Because I have to hope.’_

One of the last things Sherlock had said to him; love and relationships. Why try? His response had been simple. He remembered the scoff and scrunched look of whimsy that crossed Holmes' face as if a child had said something pleasing and too innocent to be understood. It was simple though. Hope. Belief. You had to keep it.

He went up to his bed at seven-hundred-and twenty minutes. Half a day and lifetime away from his… yes, John would need someone.  Losing someone who meant so very much. Being alone... No, he, Lestrade, others; they would help John as much as they could. They’d clear Sherlock’s name.

**Author's Note:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckd317BNEOo Porcelain by Helen J. Long


End file.
